How Does Your Financial Advisor Rate?

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There are financial advisors with 5 Star ratings that measure the quality of their credentials, ethics, business practices and services. They volunteer information, a process called transparency, because they have nothing to hide. They even document their information for you.

So, where are the financial advisors with One Star quality ratings? Good question.

Mutual Funds

Morningstar uses public data to produce research reports that include quality ratings of One to Five Stars for mutual funds. You also have access to fund prospectuses because funds, unlike financial advisors, have mandatory disclosure requirements.

This does not make a lot of sense. Isn’t the decision to select a high quality financial advisor just as important as the decision to select a high quality mutual fund? In fact, selecting the right financial advisor may be more important because they help you select mutual funds.

Your Buying Decision

So where are the One Star rated advisors? Actually, I will answer the question with a question. Would you knowingly buy from a One Star rated advisor? 92.7% of investors told us they would not. So advisors withhold low ratings so you will buy what they are selling.

Real Financial Experts

All advisors know you want real financial experts helping you plan your retirement and invest your assets. Therefore, advisors use sales pitches and undocumented sales claims to convince you they are real experts. They withhold any information (low ratings) that contradicts this part of their sales pitch.

Wall Street’s Biggest Secret

As usual, the biggest culprit is Wall Street. It advertises trust, but it sends hundreds of millions of dollars per year to lobbyists and politicians to make sure there are no mandatory disclosure requirements for financial advisors. This is not an investor-friendly business practice.

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Paladin Advisors

Paladin Registry is an independent, educational resource designed to help investors who rely on financial advisors and financial planners to help them accumulate and preserve assets for retirement. Since 2003 Paladin Registry has been providing retirement planning resources as well as information to assist finding a financial advisor or finding a financial planner. Paladin Registry has been featured in Kiplinger, Business Week, Forbes, The Washington Post, Yahoo Finance and has been seen in numerous other leading financial news and information websites.